Page 117 of Bound By Stars
“Please, Jupe. You have to go.”
Gianna rips us apart, yanking me back and shoving Weslie into the crowd as they surge forward around her.
“No!” The word tears through my throat.
Her smile is false as the angry mob engulfs her. She wants me to believe what she said, that she’ll make it off the ship, that there’s a good reason for me to go and her to stay, but we both know she was lying. She turns away, swallowed up by the chaos. My rib cage caves in around my heart, cutting through my insides, ripping me apart.
Gianna carries me halfway through the pod door, but I catch the edge with both hands. “I can’t leave her!”
The crew pods are probably long gone. She’ll be stuck on a sinking ship.
I stare at my mother. “You could let these people on and save them all.”
“You know exactly why that is not possible, Jupiter. Fewer bodies give us a better chance of survival. Who knows how long rescue efforts will take?”
“Bodies? These are people!” I sweep my hand back toward the faces of parents and children and friends and companions. People who are loved. Who will leave others behind to grieve for them. Who matter, no matter where they were born.
“If one of us doesn’t make it, more people will suffer under the collapse of the company.” Her voice is so emotionless, so callous.
My stomach twists. “You have to—”
“You are getting in this pod whether you want to or not!” She pinches her eyes shut, her jaw tight and posture rigid. Taking a seat, she smooths her dress over her thighs like she’s sitting down to dinner. “Now, take your seat, or Gianna will put you in it.”
Gianna grabs at the front of my shirt, but I block her with my open palm. She meets my gaze. The resolve in her expression loosens like she’s torn between what she’s ordered to do and what she wants to do. Her shoulders rise and fall heavily. She’s an Earther like Weslie, like most of these people. I’ve never considered the emotional toll working for my mother must have on her.
A man lunges for her.
“Back off!” She whips around, and he freezes with the muzzle of her gun pressed to his forehead before she kicks him back into the crowd.
“Jupe, please…” my father begs.
I can see what he doesn’t say in his eyes.I can’t lose you, too.
Andi’s death broke my family. Or maybe I just didn’t realize how fragile our connections were until she was gone. Like she was the part that kept us functioning. The missing piece that meant without her we’d never run right again.
Dad tries to stand, but the straps catch him. He starts to unclamp the complicated harness holding him in his seat.
I look to where Weslie disappeared into the crowd. A tugging sensation in the pit of my stomach draws me back like an invisible thread still connecting us. And somehow, I know it’s permanent. That no matter what happened to either of us, it would always be pulling me toward her, even if I got on that escape pod and she didn’t make it out. My chest is suddenly painfully hollow at the thought.
“That’s it! I’m getting my kids on that pod,” a woman shrieks, charging toward us with a small child in each arm.
Gianna fires at the ceiling, stepping through the door and reaching for me, but I duck out of her grip, opening a path for the mother and twins to dive into the pod.
I turn back to my parents, my eyes flicking from one to the other. “I’m sorry.”
I barrel into the crowd, fighting against the rush for the escape pod. Their last hope for survival. Possibly mine. But I have to get to Weslie. I turn back, watching as the passengers pass their children toward the front, forcing them into the pod with my parents. Gianna brandishes her gun, holding back the tide until the last of the children is thrust inside. She dips her head to me and ducks through the doorway.
“Nooo—” My mom’s scream is cut off by the sealing door as Gianna hits the release button and they’re catapulted into space.
The current of the remaining crowd shifts like crashing water, pushing me in every direction.
“We’re all going to die!” a woman screams.
Hands grab at my shirt. A shoulder slams into my chest. Fingernails claw at my bare forearm. I search the sea of faces, but she’s not here. I’m knocked backward, losing ground, and grab a handful of someone’s jacket before I fall.
“Let go!” the man next to me shouts.
Barely keeping my footing, I duck under swinging arms, trip over moving feet. I pull myself through the chaos until I break through. “Weslie!”
